Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) was an English cleric-turned-writer best known for his aphoristic collection *Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words* (early 1820s), a popular repository of moral maxims in the Regency period. The quoted sentence belongs to that tradition: compact, balanced prose meant for reflection and self-discipline rather than for a single speech occasion. Colton wrote amid a culture that prized “improvement” literature—brief, memorable sayings about prudence, character, and the management of one’s life. His own career, marked by ambition, debt, and eventual exile, gives added biographical irony to his repeated emphasis on foresight and the wise use of time.

Colton personifies time as a force that carries human life forward with a moral procession: wisdom should lead our actions, opportunity accompanies the present moment, and repentance trails behind as the cost of delay or misjudgment. Calling time “the cradle of hope” suggests that hope is not mere wishing but something nurtured by timely action—plans made early, chances seized when they appear, and habits formed before consequences harden. The final antithesis (“friend” vs. “enemy”) frames time as an ally when we work with its rhythms—preparation, punctuality, patience—and as an adversary when we waste or resist it, leaving even friendship unable to rescue us from the results.